Books such as hard cover books are often delivered on large pallets in stacks with the books being counterstacked within a stack. That is, adjacent books in the stack have their backbones pointed in opposite directions. If the books are to be operated in a subsequent operation, for example, being jacket wrapped with a wrapper or container by automatic equipment, it is often necessary to destack the books and feed them forwardly in a continuous stream at a required rate to keep the subsequent operation running at the desired speed. For the jacket wrapping equipment, the destacked books also must be oriented so that all of the books face in the same direction.
Heretofore, much of the destacking and book orienting has been done manually. In the manual operation, book stacks would be placed on a lift table and one or two persons would lift the top book of the stack and place it on the infeed conveyor to the jacket wrapping machine. Because the books were counterstacked, the person would manually turn every other book so that all of the books were facing in the same direction as they went into the jacket wrapper. The manual operations are slow, e.g., about 40 books per minute, when compared to higher, automated book feed rates such as 40 to 75 books per minute. In addition to being slower, the manually repetitive operations of lifting and turning the books are desired to be eliminated and replaced with a more ergonomically desired, automated process. From a cost standpoint, it is desirable to replace the two people feeding and turning the books with a faster, automated system. It is important when handling the books, whether in a stack or when destacked, that the equipment handle the books carefully and not bang one book against another book and cause damage to one or more of the books. Thus, there is a need for a new and improved method and apparatus for destacking, orienting and feeding books at high speeds with reliable equipment.